Tag: drama

Opera is often about love — its pleasures, its pain and its predicaments. Some of the most special moments are the rare duet-arias, where the solo honours are shared equally between two virtuoso singers. Typically the two characters, having fallen in love (at first sight, of course), express their happiness together and/or desire for each […]

For Thursday of Holy Week. This is the fifth post in a series for Holy Week and Easter Day, 2020. Peter’s three-times denial of knowing Jesus, in the hours after Jesus had been arrested and was being interrogated, is one of the most affecting and deeply personal parts of the Passion story, confronting us individually. […]

For Wednesday of Holy Week. This is the fourth post in a series for Holy Week and Easter Day, 2020. Isaiah 53:3: He was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.Isaiah 50:6: He gave his back to the smiters, and his cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: […]

For Monday of Holy Week. This is the second post in a series for Holy Week and Easter Day, 2020. With this intense 10-minute opening movement of the Passion according to St John (Leipzig, Good Friday, 7 April 1724), Bach brings us — forcefully pushes us — into the drama of the events that led […]

For Palm Sunday. This is the first post in a series for Holy Week and Easter Day, 2020. Palm Sunday, when we remember Christ’s entry into Jerusalem, is commonly celebrated with joyful praise, in emulation of how Jesus was welcomed with palms and loud cheers of ‘Hosanna to the son of David! Blessed is He […]

Vox Luminis, performing in Auxi-le-Château in 2012. In these days and weeks many people are weeping, especially from heartbreak over the loss of loved ones, friends and colleagues as the COVID-19 epidemic increasingly takes many lives in many countries — in many cases lives cut short in their prime and before their time. For each […]